Top Scientific Discoveries of 2012

There were many really big moments in science this year. From finding a long, long sought subatomic particle to pushing the limits of extraterrestrial exploration to righting an ethical wrong, science took some big steps in 2012.

While they may not all be discoveries exactly, they all will have a major, lasting impact on science and the world. Here are Wired Science's picks for the biggest discoveries, breakthroughs and moments in science this year.

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Higgs Boson Discovered

In July, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider ended a 5-decade-long search when they announced the discovery of the Higgs boson. This long-sought particle is responsible for giving all other subatomic elements, such as protons and electrons, their mass, and was the final piece in the Standard Model, which describes the interactions of all known particles and forces. While LHC researchers were cautious, only calling their results a “Higgs-like” particle until more data and analysis is available, the finding was widely hailed as the most important fundamental physics discovery in more than a generation.

And the story is far from over. Scientists had been hoping that spotting the Higgs would also provide their first glimpse of physics beyond the Standard Model, which has various problems and inconsistencies that need fixing. But the particle has so far proved to be stubbornly normal, with little to no deviation from what was predicted under the Standard Model. The LHC will shut down for repairs and upgrades next year, returning in 2015 to probe the subatomic universe at higher energy scales and hopefully turn up even more interesting phenomena.

Image: Data from the CMS experiment, which helped uncover the Higgs boson. The yellow and green lines are characteristic signals that point to a Higgs particle decaying. (Thomas McCauley, Lucas Taylor / CERN)

Curiosity Lands on Mars

Millions of people stayed up very late, or got up very early, to witness the nail-biting but successful landing of NASA’s latest and greatest Mars rover, Curiosity, on Aug. 6. Anxiety had been running high in the days prior to the event, with the rover’s descent sequence including the fully automated “seven minutes of terror” and a never-before-attempted, seemingly crazy sky crane maneuver to bring the probe safely down to the soil. Engineers at JPL mission control broke into laughter, applause, and a few tears when touchdown was declared. The entire sequence can be relived in the many mind-blowing videos made from Curiosity data by both NASA and video professionals.

Image: NASA mission control for Curiosity the moment the signal came back informing them that the rover touched down. (NASA TV)

The Rise of Rare Variants

Late in the millennium's first decade, after the first great wave of disease genomics studies, genetics came to an uncomfortable realization: For all the many common diseases and traits that clearly had heritable, biological components, researchers could only link a small fraction of them to genes. They called this conundrum the missing heritability.

At the time, however, researchers had only analyzed very common types of genetic variation. In the last year, the results of studies involving rare genetic variants, too uncommon to be identified with earlier tools, came to light. The upshot: The vast majority of genetic variation in humanity is indeed rare, arising only in the last few thousand years as human populations boomed.

The image above represents this visually. The top row shows genetic variants identified in each chromosome, dated to before (left) and after (right) the boom. On the bottom, the age of the variations is displayed. It turns out that harmful variants tend to be new, probably so new that natural selection hasn't yet weeded them out. That's potentially troubling news for human population health, but there's a bright side, too. The sheer accumulation of new genetic variants means that humans are more evolvable than ever.

After all, genetic tests for newborn babies are already routine. Millions of parents would almost undoubtedly want to scan their fetuses, too. The scans might pick up potentially fatal conditions early, saving lives and easing pain. The scans would also, however, detect more ambiguous medical signals, such as predispositions to disease, or information about traits like personality or physique. What would parents do with that information? What should they do? Is there a limit to how much genetic information parents want about their babies? And how much of that information should be shared with a child? None of these questions have clear answers, and they'll be debated in years to come.

Images: A 3-D ultrasound of a fetus in its first trimester. (Biagio Azzarelli/Flickr)

Quantum Teleportation Distance Record Broken

Over the summer, two teams of researchers, one from China and the other from Austria, broke a world record by teleporting quantum particles more than 50 miles through the open air. This little trick involves entangling two particles, like photons, so that they both have the exact same properties. Using a third particle, the characteristics of one of these photons are beamed to a distant location, creating a remote copy.

Scientists now think they will one day be able teleport particles to a satellite in space and then beam them back to any location on Earth. Such technology could allow spies to pass unbreakable codes back and forth and might one day form the backbone of a quantum internet. China plans to test this possibility with a dedicated quantum information satellite, to be launched in 2016, while other countries are racing to make sure they don’t fall too far behind on this important technology.

Just like DNA, XNA is capable of storing genetic information and then evolving through natural selection. Unlike DNA, it can be carefully manipulated. For now, researchers hope it might be used for medical or industrial purposes. It will also be a useful tool for researchers studying the origins of life. And while both XNA and human understanding are still too rudimentary to synthesize a life form fundamentally unlike any yet known, it can now be imagined.

Image: An XNA molecule. (Pinheiro et al./Science)

SpaceX Launches to the International Space Station

It was a very good year for the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX. After successfully launching and orbiting its Dragon spacecraft around the Earth in 2010 – the first time a private company has done so – SpaceX celebrated ever greater milestones in 2012. In May, it delivered Dragon to the International Space Station for the first time. A second mostly successful launch in October actually transferred cargo to the orbiting laboratory, proving that SpaceX was capable of bringing supplies and potentially U.S. astronauts to the ISS.

Image: Dragon docked to the International Space Station in May. (NASA)

Earth’s Exoplanet Twin

A rocky, roughly Earth-size exoplanet orbits Alpha Centauri B, one of the stars in the nearest stellar system to our own. Reported in October, the planet is just 4.4 light-years from Earth. But, with a year lasting 3.2 Earth-days, the planet is probably too close to its star to host life as we know it. A team using the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher found the planet after detecting its small, gravitational tugs on Alpha Centauri B.

Scientists suspect that Alpha Centauri’s three stars might host a few more planets: Where there’s one rocky planet, there are usually more. But don’t plan on visiting the system any time soon. Though Alpha Centauri is a favored destination for proposed interstellar space missions, it’s still too far away to reach with today’s technology.

Image: Artist's rendering of the Earth-size planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, one member of the star system closest to Earth. The sun is depicted in the upper right. (ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger)

Scientists Reach Lake Vostok

After more than a decade of drilling, Russian scientists finally reached Lake Vostok,14-million-old Antarctic lake buried beneath the ice, in February. About the size of Lake Ontario, Vostok is the largest of some 300 lakes carved into the southern polar cap. The Russians broke through to the lake’s surface -- after drilling through 2.2 miles of ice -- just as the drilling season was coming to an end.

In October, a preliminary analysis of ice that had frozen to the drill bit revealed no evidence of microbial life in the pristine subglacial oasis, a disappointment to those who had been hoping for evidence of extremophiles living in icy darkness. But the lake itself could still harbor life, and two teams from the U.S. and the U.K. are currently in Antarctica preparing to drill through the ice and hoping to retrieve samples from Lake Vostok itself.

Image: After drilling through more than 2 miles of ice, scientists finally reached Lake Vostok, a buried Antarctic body of water that's been sealed for millions of years. (NSF)

Ending Invasive Chimp Research

For decades, invasive research on chimpanzees has cast a shadow on the conscience of medical science in the United States. Mankind's closest relative is clearly capable of thinking and feeling in ways similar to humans, yet thousands have been held in brutal captivity, subjected to procedures that even the coldest mind would shudder to think of inflicting on a person. Even after every other country in the world outlawed invasive chimp research, it persisted in America.

At the end of 2011, an expert panel convened by the Institute of Medicine, the nation's medical science advisers, declared that invasive research was not only cruel, but mostly unnecessary. Many animal advocates cheered their recommendations. It remained uncertain, however, whether the National Institutes of Health, the largest sponsor of chimp research, would actually stop the research.

In September the NIH announced the retirement from research of 110 chimps. Another 475 remain in government labs, and another 500 or so are privately owned by pharmaceutical companies, but the retirement sent a message: Medical research on chimps is no longer acceptable. It's coming to an end.